The present invention relates generally to voice and data communications, and more particularly, to a wireless system and method for providing communication services to a wireless mobile user of a network through another network using a different network technology.
With the ever-evolving technology in the wireless industry, new wireless generations are being standardized to provide a new and broader set of wireless services to end users. With this natural evolution, new network architectures and technologies are defined and deployed in the market, which leads to a coexistence of multiple wireless networks built on multiple technologies, with some having the capability to support more services than others. In general, older networks may evolve but seldom are able to provide the same features or support the same capacity as newer networks.
While operating both an older network and a newer network, one of the concerns for a network operator is how to continue managing some existing services based on the older network technology in the newer network which may use different rules and protocols.
Taking a wireless Prepaid Service as an example, each subscriber of the Prepaid Service is assigned a record in a network database system which includes a unique account number and an associated prepaid monetary value. The record is maintained and updated based on the user services usage and requests for monetary increases.
FIG. 1 illustrates a simplified schematic of a current solution for providing the Prepaid Service in two communication networks of two different generations of network technologies. The two independent networks in the example are an IS41 network 10 and a GSM/UMTS network 12, each having a separate service system for providing the Prepaid Service. For the IS41 network 10, a full blown intranet based billing subsystem 14 is established to communicate with a Signaling Control Point (SCP) 16 of the network 10 for handling calls made or received by subscribers of the IS41 network 10 (e.g., calls made from the IS41 network to the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) 18). For the GSM network 12, another dedicated SCP 20 is installed to communicate with another billing subsystem 22 for calls made by subscribers of the Prepaid Service using the GSM network 12. In order to accommodate both technologies (IS41 and GSM in this case), each network has to have an SCP and a billing system, which will cause a wireless service provider higher operational costs and longer service deployment time.
Another disadvantage of such a solution is that the network architecture shown above does not provide high scalability. That is, for each additional network maintained by the wireless service provider, an additional SCP and billing system must be installed, thereby increasing operational and deployment costs with future network expansions.
What is needed is a method and system that allows seamless service migration from one network technology to another. The solution must be cost effective due to the large investment that service providers have put into existing networks, and should provide high scalability to the networks so that future capacity increases can easily be supported. In addition, there should be no degradation in the quality and reliability of the services provided to the subscribers and should require very little change to the existing networks and their contained network entities.